Tuesday, November 30, 2010
J.V Records
Saturday, November 27, 2010
New Coldplay album inspired by graffiti
http://www.guardian.co.uk/music/2010/nov/26/new-coldplay-album-inspired-graffiti
Tuesday, November 23, 2010
Jersey Shore Gives Michael Cera A Makeover
I believe that it is funny that the Jersey Shore cast give4s Michael Cera a makeover based on what they believe a Guido should look like.
Sunday, November 21, 2010
DIY 'Hackers' Tinker Everyday Things Into Treasure
Listen to the Story
Christopher Thompson — of Philadelphia's Hive 76 hacker space — builds a BOOMcase boombox out of a suitcase and an amplifier from an old computer speaker system.
Christopher Thompson — of Philadelphia's Hive 76 hacker space — builds a BOOMcase boombox out of a suitcase and an amplifier from an old computer speaker system.
Are You A Hacker? Find Your Space
Find a community of DIY folk near you on HackerSpaces.org.
Most people think of a hacker as someone who breaks into computer networks, but many in the do-it-yourself movement have adopted the term for themselves. DIY hackers take everyday items and hack, or modify, them to serve new purposes. In the last few years, work spaces dedicated to their craft have been sprouting up all over North America.
In Chicago, members of the Pumping Station: One hacker space have turned a bicycle and trailer into a glow-in-the-dark ice cream maker. Outside San Francisco, members of the Noisebridge hacker space sent an amateur weather balloon 70,000 feet into the sky. And at the All Hands Active hacker space in Ann Arbor, Mich., a woman with a neuroscience degree turned an empty propane tank into a musical instrument.
In more than 70 hacker spaces in the U.S. and Canada, do-it-yourselfers are drilling, gluing, soldering and welding just about anything you can imagine. Some spaces consist of little more than a large room where they share tools and expertise, while others are equipped with expensive, computer-controlled power tools. While the focus at some hacker spaces is primarily on electronics, at others, sawdust flies and sewing machines whir as members build hybrid objects of a less technological variety. The spaces also offer learning opportunities through classes on anything from brewing beer to picking locks, and demonstrations of new contraptions.
Do-it-yourself hackers John Young, Randy Schmidt, Will Ronco and Chris Thompson created Meatcards in April 2009.
Do-it-yourself hackers John Young, Randy Schmidt, Will Ronco and Chris Thompson created Meatcards in April 2009.
On a recent weeknight at the Brooklyn hacker space NYC Resistor, a visitor from Brazil gave a talk about how to build a pinball machine. The hackers at NYC Resistor have some experience with recreational machinery; they once turned an old slot machine into a robot that mixes alcoholic drinks, from Bloody Marys to Dirty Chihuahuas.
"Imagine kittens with jet packs flying around in a room," says NYC Resistor co-founder Bre Pettis. "NYC Resistor is a force of chaos in the world."
All that energy and creativity is made possible by a well-equipped and stable place to work, which is essentially what these hacker spaces are. They wouldn't survive without some financial support, so most have monthly dues between $50 and $100. A handful of the spaces are commercial enterprises, but most are democratically run nonprofits.
"It's a combination of community, as well as opportunities for people to express themselves through making things and learning more and more about what they're enthusiastic about and really love," says Mitch Altman, co-founder of the San Francisco hacker space Noisebridge. "Each space is unique and over time all of the spaces … get more diverse."
Jack Zylkin's USB Typewriter allows you to write emails from an old manual typewriter.
Jack Zylkin's USB Typewriter allows you to write emails from an old manual typewriter.
The diversity of the hacker space is particularly visible at Philadelphia's Hive 76 where, on a recent weeknight, one member made business cards by etching beef jerky with a laser cutter while another played his iPod through a small suitcase that had been transformed into a boombox. Jack Zylkin, a 26-year-old electrical engineer, mashed new technology with old by making a computer keyboard out of an old manual typewriter.
Before he started wiring up old typewriters, Zylkin was making wooden puzzles at home. He used his bedroom as a silk screen studio and his kitchen as a wood shop.
"Before I came here to Hive 76, I had a drill press right next to my sink," Zylkin says. "I'd be drilling a hole in something with the drill press, and all the wood shavings I'd just brushed into the sink trap."
Hacker spaces are making it possible — and in some cases profitable — for tinkerers like Zylkin to pursue their creative impulses and to make things that, until now, have gone unimagined.
"[Hive 76] gave me a place to put all my tools and meet other crazy people who were also at risk of burning their houses down," his says. "This place rescued me."
Related NPR Stories
Tuesday, November 16, 2010
DIY Temporary Tattoos
JuliAnn Miller’s Test Kit Allows You to Think Before You Ink
JuliAnn Miller’s ‘Tattoo Tester’ is a design that allows you to create your own temporary tattoo. The packaging for this DIY temporary tattoo kit contains statistics and information about tattooed individuals who have regretted their tattoos, and emphasizes that her option allows you to experiment with a design without the lifetime commitment.
JuliAnn Miller is a graphic design student at the California College of the Arts in San Francisco. The ‘Tattoo Tester’ is the result of a project Miller completed for an information design class.
In my opinion the entire idea of temporary tattoo designs is somehow a very good idea especially when compared to actual permanent tattoos that remain with you for the rest of your life as if a permanent scar that will always be a burden if you ever end up regretting it. Kudos To JuliAnn Miller !
(Click for the site)
Graffiti writer left with severe burns after climbing on to rail tracks and urinating on transformer
An Australian learned the hard way not to urinate on a transformer when he was electrocuted
and almost died. The unnamed man, a Gold Coast graffiti vandal, ended up with severe burns on
almost half his body after he and three associates snuck into the Coomera railroad power way.
At some point he recieved a potentially lethal schock of 22,000 volts that has left him
hospitalised for the foreseeable future. Ignoring signs reading "Danger- High Voltage", the
vandals cut through wire fences and scaled the transformer in the rain around midnight. While
he was horribly injured, the current may have partially bypassed his body due to his rain-
soaked clothes, The Courier-Mail reports. His companions told the ambulance workers the man
was injured when he urinated on the tranformer. But police believe the urination story is a
coverup for the true intentions - graffiti. They believe he snuck into the power station with the
intent to tag it with the word "Wino".
Monday, November 15, 2010
Tuesday, November 9, 2010
Monday, November 8, 2010
Chilean Miner Edward Pena Finish's New York Marathon in 5 Hours and 40 Minutes
Less than a month after surviving 69 days stuck in a Chilean mine, Edison Pena pulled off another feat of endurance Sunday, completing the ING New York City Marathon in five hours, 40 minutes and 51 seconds.
Wearing a black brace on his left knee and bib No. 7-127 and flanked by two yellow-shirted volunteers, the so-called Running Miner was bathed in cheers from the estimated 2.5 million spectators from beginning to end.
The 34-year-old ran the first half of the race in two hours and seven minutes, until knee pain and exhaustion forced him to walk for some 10 miles. He slapped on two ice packs at a first-aid station and got treated for cramps at a medical tent in the 18th mile, but he kept on going, making good on his vow to complete the tortuous, five-borough 26.2-mile test.
"I came to the U.S. to run this marathon, and I did it," the 5-foot-5, 145-pound Pena said. "I struggled with my myself. I struggled with my own pain, but I made it to the finish line."
Pena even managed to speed up to a trot as he approached the finish, as his escorts held aloft the flag of Chile behind him and "The Wonder of You" by Elvis Presley - his favorite artist - blared out of the speakers.
Pena ran up to six miles a day in the collapsed mine, often lugging a heavy pallet behind him to increase the challenge. He said he did it to beat the mine, to prove to God how much he wanted to live. Three days after taking the first airplane flight of his life to get here, Pena proved the strength of his will all over again.
"Running a marathon and being trapped in a mine are two very different experiences," Pena said. "I felt great in the marathon . . . felt great with all the support I was getting. In the mine, I ran alone."
He said he contemplated stopping at Mile 18, when the knee pain was at its worst, but he pushed on.
"He has the heart of a champion," said Juan Jesus Lopez, 34, a cook from the Bronx who was one of Pena's escorts.
The New York Road Runners invited Pena to the race as a VIP, but Pena insisted he wanted to be on the starting line. More than a few people doubted the wisdom of taking on the marathon without proper training.
"He trained like Rocky trained to beat the Russian. Like a boxer," said Dr. Lewis Maharam, the former medical director of the marathon who now holds the same title for the Rock 'N Roll Marathons. "His knees were not prepared to go the distance."
But Pena did, indeed, go the distance. Who knows how much faster he might've gone if he hadn't waved to the crowd a few thousand times, and if others runners hadn't come by to shake his hand and offer him encouragement?
Pena did a rendition of Elvis' "Return to Sender" earlier in the week, and signed off yesterday's press conference with a verse of "Don't Be Cruel," complete with swiveling hips.
Pena said he ran to motivate people, "to convince them that they can do what they set out to do in life."
The mission was accomplished, according to Mary Wittenberg, the marathon's race director, and the person who invited Pena to New York.
"There's ordinary. And there's extraordinary," Wittenberg said. "And this is an extraordinary story."
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Street Art Way Below the Street
A vast new exhibition space opened in New York City this summer, with a show 18 months in the making. On view are works by 103 street artists from around the world, mostly big murals painted directly onto the gallery’s walls.
It is one of the largest shows of such pieces ever mounted in one place, and many of the contributors are significant figures in both the street-art world and the commercial trade that now revolves around it. Its debut might have been expected to draw critics, art dealers and auction-house representatives, not to mention hordes of young fans. But none of them were invited.
In the weeks since, almost no one has seen the show. The gallery, whose existence has been a closely guarded secret, closed on the same night it opened.
Known to its creators and participating artists as the Underbelly Project, the space, where all the show’s artworks remain, defies every norm of the gallery scene. Collectors can’t buy the art. The public can’t see it. And the only people with a chance of stumbling across it are the urban explorers who prowl the city’s hidden infrastructure or employees of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority.
That’s because the exhibition has been mounted, illegally, in a long-abandoned subway station. The dank, cavernous hall feels a lot farther than it actually is from the bright white rooms of Chelsea’s gallery district. Which is more or less the point: This is an art exhibition that goes to extremes to avoid being part of the art world, and even the world in general.
Friday, November 5, 2010
Subway-Tagging Street Artist Charged
A Chicago street artist who became known for tagging subway cars and buildings across the East Coast was arraigned in Queens court today. Chicago resident Zebadiah Arrington, 19, was charged with causing thousands of dollars of damage to seven A, F and 7 trains over the last three years, tagging the cars with his signature "ZEB" moniker.
Arrington, a Chicago Art Institute student, would make several trips a year to NYC to graffiti lines such as "Bomb the System," "Year 2010 Yo," "Nyke" and "Slugs," onto the Queens trains. He was allegedly caught when he emailed photos of his work to friends back home. Arrington, a member of the Chicago-based national graffiti crew known as "Chicago's Most Wanted," is also a suspect in tagging incidents in Boston, Philadelphia, and New Jersey. "Zebadiah Arrington is a very unusual young man. He's having a hard time channeling his creative output in a productive way," said his lawyer, Florian Miedel.
You can see more of his work here. In an interview with Bombing Science, he sounds quite content with how his career is progressing:
Looking back on how I got into photography, I feel that my art has expanded outside of the realm of graffiti and into the realm of documentation, and photo journalism. The first time I picked up a camera was to create an image of a graffiti piece I did on a cardboard box, and to make it look like as if it were a real wall in the photograph. Then I started taking photos of the actual walls I began to paint, and now I have ventured outside of the wall and am more interested in the surrounding environments.
The arrest comes in the wake of the unveiling of the massive underground street art Underbelly Project last weekend, which went undetected by NYPD and MTA workers for over a year.
Wednesday, November 3, 2010
Leftist Graffiti Artist Banksy Gets Bankrolled by “The Simpsons”
Anonymous leftist hipster graffiti artist Banksy has made a name for himself painting agitprop scenes on walls and bridges throughout his native Bristol, London, and other international locations.
Banksy is recognized for his mostly black-and-white, stenciling technique resembling that of fellow American artist Shepard "Hope" Fairey and old Soviet propaganda posters. His painted scenes advocate the whole panoply of progressive causes, such as pushing for health care reform, climate change legislation, nature, and peace; bemoaning war, the police, corporate control, the commodification of art, poverty, the displacement of Native Americans, and Hurricane Katrina; and idolizing Charles Manson. A recent series of wall paintings on the Israeli-Palestinian border protested security measures Israel took to protect itself against suicide bombers.
To commemorate the Copenhagen Climate Summit in November 2009, Banksy painted four murals along Regent’s Canal in London, one of which declared “I DON’T BELIEVE IN GLOBAL WARMING” in red letters, the last two words partly submerged below the waterline. This was supposed to be a statement about man-made climate change, and while it likely had little impact, it arguably yielded more efficacious results than the summit itself.
Recently Banksy was invented to help storyboard the introductory “couch gag” for “The Simpsons,” which aired last Sunday.
The opening credit sequence begins with a few clues foreshadowing the Banksy material. The bird that flies across the screen in the opening shot is carrying a rat, one of Banksy’s favorite icon. “BANKSY” is spray painted over a billboard advertising Krusty the Klown’s funeral business. Bart is writing “I must not write all over the walls” all over the chalkboard and walls of the classroom. “BANKSY” is tagged on the wall outside the school.
After the Simpsons sit down in their living room, the familiar couch scene pans out and becomes a color image on the wall of a dreary, black-and-white factory. Rows of forlorn, sickly Chinese women slave away hand-painting animation cels, while guards stand by and a sorrowful Communist-sounding melody with a chorus of wailing voices serenades them. The completed frames are passed to a barefooted waif who carries them one-by-one to an oil drum, climbs to the top of the drum, and dips them in a bubbling, green, toxic substance to treat them before hanging them on a clothesline to dry. On the ground are a pile of human skulls and bones; a rat pulls out one bone and drags it away.
The camera pans through a hole in the floor to an elaborate, multilevel, wooden walkway leading downward into the cave-like depths of the factory. Children push racks of brightly colored Simpsons T-shirts along the walkway, sparsely placed candles their only lighting.
In the basement, workers throw live caged kittens into a shredding machine that turns them into stuffing, which another worker uses to fill cloth Bart Simpson dolls. The worker tosses the dolls into a wheelbarrow attached to a decrepit-looking panda, which wearily hauls the boxes away.
A man uses a primitive sealing device, consisting of the jaw and tongue of a massacred porpoise, to close up boxes of merchandise for shipment. Finally, a child pokes holes through the centers of Simpsons DVDs using a sharp post that turns out to be the horn of a chained unicorn, which flops to the ground in exhaustion.
The view pans out to a dreary 20th Century Fox logo made of stained limestone instead of the traditional gold, and flanked by tall, barbed-wire-topped chain-link fences.
There’s so much to laugh at in this ludicrously over-the-top montage that it’s hard to know where to start.
Posted by: Daniel Acosta
Monday, November 1, 2010
NO PANTS SUBWAY RIDE
It is official. January is the "NO PANTS MONTH". Or, at least if you rush out with no pants and are riding the 6, N, or R train one day in January, you won't be the only one. In fact, 3,000 people last January "forgot" their pants this year.
Also, the medical community better do some researching because the idea has spread like the flu since 2002 with over 300 people in just NYC to this year with 5,000 pant-less participants in over 44 cities around the world!
Maybe people get an allergic reaction around the world all on one day and can't call in sick, or making a statement that pants are somehow an evil commodity; perhaps it is just a FLASH-MOB with harmless, fun and funny intentions to make other commuters on public transportation smile and laugh, take a few memorable pictures with the mobile phones and have a less stressful day.
In fact, commuters laugh, smile and giggle at the ample people with the wardrobe malfunction, many of them even don't pay any attention to the extra freezing skin and polka-dot boxers in 20 degree weather.
But in the end, a bunch of people have fun, laugh and get together to do something harmless and eye-popping and memorable. The trend is growing as one of the D.I.Y. movements that has no experience required, just some undies, a good attitude and the ability to laugh at yourself (and the guy with the funny boxers).